Naira Falls to N463.67/$1 at I&E As Coinbase Mulls US Market Exit

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira fell against the Dollar on Thursday at the Investors and Exporters (I&E), and the black market segments of the foreign exchange market ahead of the Eid-al-Fitr holiday.

However, it appreciated against the American currency during the session in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window of the FX market.

The Nigerian currency lost N1.17 or 0.25 per cent to close at N463.67/$1 compared with Wednesday’s value of N462.50/$1, as the value of forex trades decreased by $8.17 million or 5.5 per cent to $139.85 million from the $148.02 million recorded in the preceding session.

Also, in the parallel market, the local currency shed N2 against the greenback on Thursday to settle at N739/$1, in contrast to the midweek session’s N737/$1.

But in the P2P, the domestic currency closed flat against its United States counterpart at N755/$1 at the close of business.

In the interbank segment, the Naira gained N1.66 against the Pound Sterling to sell at N572.18/£1 versus N573.84/£1 and also improved by N1.66 against the Euro to close at N504.09/€1 compared with Wednesday’s N505.75/€1.

A look at the digital currency market revealed that the bears went haywire yesterday as most of the tokens monitored by Business Post declined after Coinbase CEO, Mr Brian Armstrong, indicated that the crypto exchange giant might leave the US.

Market analysts noted that if Coinbase leaves the American market, a lot of traders in the country will be gone because they probably won’t feel confident trading on decentralized exchanges, which means the global crypto market will shrink significantly.

This affected Bitcoin (BTC) as it shed 2.4 per cent to trade at $28,204.41, Ethereum (ETH) lost 0.9 per cent to quote at $1,934.45, Dogecoin (DOGE) shrank by 7.4 per cent to $0.0840, Ripple (XRP) recorded a 4.3 per cent slide to finish at $0.4744, Cardano (ADA) declined by 3.3 per cent to $0.4039, Solana (SOL) recorded a 2.2 per cent slump to trade at $22.22, Binance Coin (BNB) went down by 1.9 per cent to $318.29, and Litecoin (LTC) dropped 1.1 per cent to end at $89.74, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.